1798 - París, França - L'Exposition publique des produits de l'industrie française, Paris, 1798.[2] This was the first public industrial exposition in France although earlier in 1798 the Marquis d'Avèze had held a private exposition of handicrafts and manufactured goods at the Maison d'Orsay in the Rue de Varennes and it was this that suggested the idea of a public exposition to François de Neufchâteau, Minister of the Interior for the French Republic.[3]

1801 - París, França - Segonda Exposicion (1801). After the success of the exposition of 1798 a series of expositions for French manufacturing followed (1801, 1802, 1806, 1819, 1823, 1827, 1834, 1844, 1849) until the first properly international (or universal) exposition in France in 1855.[4]